Gaza Condemned to Disease and Famine by Israeli Siege and Bombing

Israel's latest assault on the besieged Gaza Strip has created the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East in decades. Palestinian scientist and human rights activist Mazin Qumsiyeh said the dead were going unburied while the living starve.

Gaza's 2.3 million people are dying of curable diseases and malnutrition thanks to Israel's war on the enclave, a Palestinian scientist says.

Israel placed Gaza under a total siege in response to the October 7 incursion by Hamas and other militants, which left 300 Israeli soldiers and police and 1,100 civilians dead. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the shutting off of electricity and water supplies and the closure of checkpoints, denying inhabitants fuel, medicine and even food.

The Israeli Defense Forces have targeted hospitals, claiming Hamas has subterranean bases beneath them.

The World Health Organization has reported that 22 hospitals and 14 other health facilities in Gaza have been damaged by Israeli bombing since then. The Palestinian Health Ministry says 18 hospitals in the enclave are out of action as a result of Israel's actions.

Palestinian scientist Mazin Qumsiyeh told Sputnik that the situation in Gaza was "really horrific".

"There's 39 babies that were removed from incubators at the Shifa Hospital," Qumisyeh said. "Already three of them have died because they were removed from incubators that were not functioning anymore because of the lack of electricity and oxygen and so forth. And probably some others will die, too."

Patients with cancer are no longer receiving treatment and at least eight have reportedly died, while others have been sent home.

"We don't know if they have already died. They were sent home from the only cancer hospital in Gaza because there's no more treatments that could be offered because of the blockade on medicines," Qumisyeh explained. "Dialysis patients are dying because of blood poisoning, because they cannot have the dialysis machines operate without electricity."

Added to the regular medicals cases are the 29,000 people wounded in Israel's bombing and ground invasion of Gaza, the scientist said. He added that 11,800 have been killed and there were "dead bodies in the streets, not just in the Shifa hospital, but everywhere."

"The living are living in a hell and a nightmare," Qumisyeh stressed. "You can imagine these injured people cannot get anymore medical treatment. They can't get surgeries, they cannot get even painkillers. They cannot have any kind of a normal medical assistance."

That situation is made worse by Israel's decision to cut off water supplies to Gaza, he added.

"Water is very, very polluted, when it's present, and some people even dangerously tried to drink seawater," Qumisyeh said. "Luckily then a day ago, there was some rain in Gaza and some people were able to collect some water. But starvation is setting in and already malnutrition caused spread of disease in Gaza" — including cholera, which could be treatable if the hospitals were able to operate.

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